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    Longing for Paris: One Woman's Search for Joy, Beauty and Adventure--Right Where She Is
    Longing for Paris: One Woman's Search for Joy, Beauty and Adventure--Right Where She Is
    Longing for Paris: One Woman's Search for Joy, Beauty and Adventure--Right Where She Is
    Ebook225 pages3 hours

    Longing for Paris: One Woman's Search for Joy, Beauty and Adventure--Right Where She Is

    By Sarah Mae

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    About this ebook

    For anyone who has ever daydreamed of another life . . .
    Most days, you wouldn’t trade what you have for the world. You love your husband and your kids, and you are grateful to God for your life. But there are days when you feel as though life is rolling over you in waves and you are just going through the motions. You find yourself aching for something more, something that is calling to depths of who you are, maybe for something you can’t even name.

    For Sarah Mae, it was Paris, a place that is known for breathtaking beauty, inspiring art, and exquisite food. But as she searched her heart, she found there was more to her longings than she anticipated.

    Join Sarah Mae in Longing for Paris, a soul-searching, light-filled journey for the woman who knows she can’t uproot her life to discover herself and her longings, but who desperately wants to uncover them so she can get unstuck and choose a life that is filled with beauty, adventure, and deep joy . . . right where she is.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTyndale House Publishers
    Release dateAug 4, 2015
    ISBN9781496400574
    Author

    Sarah Mae

    Sarah Mae, listed as one of the Christian Broadcasting Network's "Six Women Leaders to Follow on Twitter," is an influential blogger, conference host, and author of the best-selling ebook 31 Days to Clean: Having a Martha House the Mary Way. She makes her home in the beautiful Amish country of Pennsylvania where she celebrates life with her husband and three children.

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      Book preview

      Longing for Paris - Sarah Mae

      The Catalyst: Paris and Questions

      (A Must-Read Introduction to Understand Le Book)

      P

      ARIS HAS FASCINATED

      me since I was a young girl.

      Growing up, most of my life I lived with my dad and stepmom, except when I spent summers with my mom. I would lie in bed with her on those summer nights, all cozied up under soft blankets, and she would teach me French words and phrases. They all sounded so beautiful to me. With her large looping handwriting, she would scribble French words into a red notebook that had a French poodle on the cover, and I took it all in, making sure to tuck Paris into my heart. I wanted to learn, I wanted to keep listening to the beauty, and I wanted to hang on to my mom for a little bit longer because I knew the summer days would end soon enough.

      My mom and her parents had lived on the outskirts of Paris when her father was stationed at the US European Command headquarters in Camp-de-Loges from 1964– 1966. From the ages of ten to twelve, Mom called Maisons-Laffitte home. She told me she loved it there and that the people seemed so free, unencumbered by what others thought. They just lived and enjoyed life and food and conversation. My grandfather was also fond of Paris, particularly the wine and the eight- to eleven-course meals. Both my mother and my grandfather shared a love of the culture.

      Hearing the stories of Paris from my mother and grandfather sets my heart yearning to see it for myself; I have never been there. I want to experience the beauty and the art and the food and the culture.

      But this longing for Paris sparks something else in me. I find myself beginning to dream about living another life.

      My imagination takes me to Paris in the 1920s. Midnight in Paris, one of my favorite movies, captures perfectly my ideal Paris. The movie takes the lead character, Gil Pender (played by Owen Wilson), back in time to that era, where he meets F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway among other writers and artists who have a genuine camaraderie with each other in that city that seems to never lose its sparkle. I would have loved being part of that time, going to cafés every day, writing, staying up late, and having long conversations into the night about God and faith and art and music and all of the things that set flame to my soul.

      My imagination takes a turn, and before long I’m dreaming of two lives, paralleling each other. In one life, I’m doing what I’m doing now. I’m married, raising my precious children, homeschooling, and, as Barbara Mouser says in Five Aspects of Woman, trying to raise life above the mere existence where God has me. In my other life, I move to Paris and get a place at 39 rue Descartes where Hemingway wrote, wake slowly in the mornings, ease my way into my coffee, and run my fingers on notebook pages ready to be filled. I have time to write words that matter, that encourage the soul, because I have time for depth. At the end of the day, I put my work in my bag and walk in the rain along the Seine, then stay up late in rooms filled with music and laughter. Conversations run deep, and my soul’s need for beauty and purpose and relationship is realized.

      Something in me aches as I come back to reality. Why these dreams? Why this longing? I’m happy with my life, thankful for all I have. And yet . . .

      It is this longing for Paris that leads me to explore my deeper longings. And as I begin to look inside my soul, I see that attached to my longings are questions. Lots of questions.

      Lord, I groan, what are these longings in my soul? Are they selfish? How do I live and sacrifice and raise my kids well and still ‘follow my dreams’? Is following my dreams even biblical? What does it all mean? How do I navigate between my reality and my longings? Do I ignore them in order to sacrifice for my family? As a woman, I feel particularly confused with my longings. . . . What do I do with them?

      I want to know how to live between this tension of following my dreams and living a Jesus-following, cross-centered life. I want to know how not to shut out my longings, while at the same time giving myself to the daily work of raising my children well and not being so divided that I neglect them. I want to know, does the Lord approve of my dreams? And really, what are dreams? What are my longings, and why are they there? Can I be a good mom, an intentional mom, and also allow my longings to come to life? And can I truly enjoy my life right where I am?

      It is these questions that open wide a flood of yearning in me that has been dammed up for quite a while.

      And it is these questions that have led me to write this book.

      Before I could begin to really enjoy my life, tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord, I needed to sort out some of the tangles and questions in my soul (as you read above). I needed to know how God viewed me, and I needed to see Him. The first chapter of this book is about that untangling. Once I began to work through the mess, I started to move forward in delighting in the people and the world around me. One of the ways I found myself being more alert to the gifts around me was to find ways to bring Paris into my everyday life. I think you’ll enjoy that fun little twist, and I hope you will join me in the sorting and then in the journey.

      The unfolding journey is part serious and comes with depth and resolve, and part fun, where I am learning to enjoy the beauty and delight around me. You will read of me figuring out how to do adventure and romance, but you will also read some hard stories, stories that have shaped who I am and how they impact this whole thing, this life. Life is like that, a mix of fun and hard, beautiful and ugly, painful and life-giving. This book—the stories in it, the teaching—is all a mix, because I’m a mix of this life, as are you. I pray that the words in these pages will bring you relief where you are thirsty and a hand to hold and uplift you where you are weary.

      We do not walk alone.

      Chapter 1: Untangling My Soul

      B

      EFORE MY HEART

      would even allow me to consider Paris or other dreams, I had to sort through some bitter roots, weeds that had entangled my heart. Because of my wounds and anger and sin, I had a warped view of God, one that led me to believe that He didn’t really want me to enjoy the longings in my heart. I believed that God was all practicality. He was interested in me carrying my cross, not dreaming about the stirrings in my soul. After all, I thought my longings were selfish. I needed to buck up and be responsible. Being selfless meant having no self, no color, no joy other than the fact that I was to have eternal life. In reality I had to learn to see that because I am made in the image of God, I have emotions that run deeply, long deeply, and ache deeply. I am a person of the deep.

      Deep calls to deep . . .

      PSALM 42:7

      And because He loves me so, and because of His kindness, He led me to repentance and to clarity.

      Come into my questions and see His hand as He leads me.

      section divider

      The Bible lay on my lap, open to 2 Samuel 3. I was reading a heartbreaking scene from the story of Michal (Me-call), King David’s first wife.

      But first, let me give you some of her backstory. We are first introduced to Michal, the daughter of King Saul, in 1 Samuel 18:20. At the time, David was Saul’s military commander—a strong and brave and handsome leader—and Michal fell in love with him. Saul, who knew that his reign was in jeopardy because of David, capitalized on his daughter’s love for the future king by giving David a dangerous task to win her hand—killing one hundred Philistines. It was a mission that should have sent David to the grave, but instead sent him into the arms of the woman in waiting when he returned victorious. He had doubled what Saul had required, killing two hundred Philistines.

      After Michal and David were married, Saul’s jealousy got the best of him, so he sent men to David’s house to arrest him. Michal found out about the plot and helped David escape. When she knew he was safe, she covered for her husband, by stalling and filling his bed with items that made it look like David was there. Of course, Saul’s henchmen discovered the ruse, and soon after, Saul began a relentless manhunt for David (see 1 Samuel 19:11-17).

      While David was on the run, he took at least two more wives. Saul had given Michal to another man—Palti—to marry.

      David continued to assert his power and build up loyalty, and right before he became king, he demanded Michal’s return. She was torn from Palti, who wept as she left and followed her, powerless to stop what was happening. Finally David’s men told him to go home (2 Samuel 3:16).

      Michal, the woman who had once loved David, now despised him in her heart (2 Samuel 6:16). Her reaction could have been the result of feeling neglected while David was fighting, being jealous of David’s success as king, loathing him for taking other wives, or having second thoughts about her loyalty to him instead of her father. Venom spewed from her mouth when she saw King David celebrating the return of the Ark of God, the first time she had seen him since that night she helped him escape years before. Her words were meant to shame him.

      How could her heart that had burned with such love for this man now be filled with such disdain? David basically tells her off, and the last we hear of Michal are these fateful words: She had no child to the day of her death (2 Samuel 6:23).

      And that’s it. That’s all we know.

      My heart ached for Michal, for this woman who seemed to be a pawn between her father and her husband and power. And my ache led to questions, as pain oftentimes does, and then it made me mad, so I gave God my questions. "God, did You even care about Michal’s heart? Do You even care about women? Do You even care about me?"

      I needed to know how God saw me. I needed to know I was more than parts, more than a pawn, more than a cursed woman trying to figure out how to live redeemed in a fallen world where men hurt women.

      I needed to know what it meant for me, as a woman, to have a calling or a dream or longings. This was personal, not only for me, but for my daughters.

      WHO AM I, GOD?

      How could I possibly begin to understand my longings if I didn’t even understand who I was to God? How could I begin to truly enjoy my life if I had these deep-seated questions?

      I have been a Christian for many years now, and I know Jesus and His grace and His love. I have had great training in the Scriptures and in discipleship through The Navigators ministry. I have been poured into and have pored over the Scriptures for years, leading Bible studies and giving talks to encourage women in faith. And yet there I was, begging God to tell me how He viewed me. I was desperate to know what I meant to Him as a

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